My Bookish Resolutions for 2024

January 16, 2024 Top Ten Tuesday 15

Graphic: Bookish Resolutions for 2024 (The Bookwyrm's Hoard)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Bookish Goals for 2024.

My Bookish Resolutions for 2024

I looked at last year’s resolutions, and I was dismayed at how little I accomplished. One suggestion I have seen in several places is that it works better to set specific, concrete, achievable goals, rather than broad, sweeping resolutions. So I’m incorporating that concept into my resolutions this year. And in another bid to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed, I am limiting myself to five bookish resolutions.

1. Prioritize writing. I meant to focus more on writing last year, and I pretty much failed that goal. I want to do better this year. It will require overcoming a lot of internal resistance born of fear (of not being any good at it), plus learning and implementing better time management strategies.

To begin with, I’m setting a goal of 250 words per day. (Concrete and achievable, remember?) I can increase that goal later, once I’ve built a writing habit, but 250 words a day keeps it from seeming overwhelming. In order to make it more fun, I’m going to try 4theWords, which gamifies your writing stints. Several people I know use this, including SF/fantasy author and Writing Excuses cohost Mary Robinette Kowal, who recommends it. And to give myself accountability, I pledge to report my writing progress on the blog at least once a month.

2. Write more reviews. For several years now, I have been really terrible about reviewing the books I read. Last year, I only posted 26 reviews! So this year, I want to double that and aim for one review per week. (Concrete and achievable.) I have a couple of specific ideas that may help. First, I will set up a “shell” post for each review when I start reading the book, filling out all the stuff I know beforehand (title, author, cover, publication date, synopsis, etc.) That way, all I need to do when I finish reading is write the review. Second, I have started keeping a reading journal where I can jot down notes as I go along. And third, I’ll try to be more relaxed about the actual writing, instead of trying to make every review “perfect.” To encourage that, I may experiment with giving myself a time limit to write each review—for instance, half an hour to draft, half an hour to polish.

3. Review some of last year’s ARCs. I feel guilty about the ARCs I read but never got around to reviewing. I’m setting a goal to post one overdue (2023) ARC review per month. (Concrete and achievable.) Some of the specific steps mentioned above should help here as well. In most cases, I kept notes either in my reading journal or on my computer, but I may have to reread or at least skim the books before writing a review.

4. Choose reading over screen time more often. I realized a few years ago that I spend a lot of time on my phone or on the computer—time I used to spend reading. Like last year, one of my goals for this year is to reclaim some of that time for reading. I’m not sure yet how to make this concrete and achievable, because my schedule varies depending on whether I have an indexing project or not, and there are going to be times when time for writing is more important than time for reading. But I have downloaded and set up the Freedom app, and I will use that to cut off screen time in the evenings after 10:00 pm.

5. Continue pruning and reorganizing my book collection. As I noted last year, my book collection has grown significantly over the years. We’ll probably move and downsize sometime in the next 10 years, so I really do need to start thinking about which books I would take with me whenever we move. I took a few boxes of books to the used bookstore and the library last year, but I need to keep going. And I also want to rearrange some of my current shelves—for instance, moving my mysteries out of the study to make room for the books I want to use for writing reference and research. So that’s my first concrete, achievable goal: Move the mysteries to another room (selling or giving away any whose font has become too small for my older eyes to read) and collect all my writing and research materials in one place.

I have already set up my Monthly Wrap-Up post template to include a report on each of these five goals. (Accountability!) However, I will cut myself a little slack for January, since I only firmed up these resolutions halfway through the month and it may take me a few days to get my ducks in a row.

What are your bookish resolutions for 2024?

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15 Responses to “My Bookish Resolutions for 2024”

  4. CurlyGeek

    I feel similarly about writing more reviews, so often I end up only reviewing ARCs and not books I really loved. I like your idea of a template when you start reading, I may try that.

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      It probably won’t be the first time they have seen that! 😀 You might want to call ahead and make an appointment if you’re bringing a lot at once, though. I plan to take a box or two at a time, for a variety of reasons. (Easier on my back, for one thing.) But I’m also planning to do the pruning in stages, so that works out. Also, I am debating selling some books on Pango instead.

  8. Susan (Bloggin' 'bout Books)

    I’ve been terrible at writing reviews on my blog lately too. I doubt I even posted 26 last year! It can be really hard to keep the momentum up, for sure. Good luck with all your goals. (Oh, and have you heard of SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound? This formula works best for me when setting goals.)

    Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!

    Susan
    http://www.blogginboutbooks.com